This late September wedding isn’t quite what you’d expect. The groom is 87 and the bride is 75. They live at the Life Care Center of Plymouth, where they met during bingo.

Sue Scheible

The bride is buffing up, working out. Her wedding gown is antique white, with lace around the neck. The groom has been fitted for his tuxedo, his first one. He rode to the tux shop in a ruby-red convertible, top down. The reception will have a New England touch -- shrimp cocktail, clam chowder -- and they’ll dance to “Can I Have This Dance for the Rest of My Life?”

It sounds quite traditional, but this late September wedding isn’t quite what you’d expect. The groom is 87 and the bride is 75. They live at the Life Care Center of Plymouth, where they met during bingo.

One day he said, “You want to get married?” And she said, “Sure.” It was that matter-of fact.

“None of that bended-knee stuff,” he said.

On Saturday, Frank Foskett and Virginia Hailey will be married in the gazebo just outside the skilled nursing home’s front door.

They’ve been to town hall to get their license. They’ve invited 75 guests, including about 20 family members across four generations. Patti Mullaney, director of admissions at the nursing home, is helping them with the arrangements and most of the staff also are pitching in -- including Jen Morris, a nurse who is loaning the wedding dress. A half-dozen businesses in Plymouth are donating goods and services, including the wedding cake, food and a hotel honeymoon suite.

“I’ve been in this field for 25 years and this is a first for me,” Mullaney said. “Frank and Virginia are fully competent and know exactly what they are doing. They complement one another -- he is very outgoing, she is more reserved -- and together they make a really nice couple.”

After the wedding, they’ll continue to live at the Life Care Center, where they have shared a room for the past month. “We have no policy that people have to be married to share a room,” Mullaney said. “They’re consenting adults. It’s part of the cultural changes in elder care over the past decade – people’s right to run their own lives.”

Foskett and Hailey took time out from playing cards last week to talk about their decision. Asked why they are getting married, Foskett paused, thought a moment and said, “Why not? You have to have somebody to take care of. I’ll take care of her.”

“I need taking care of,” Hailey agreed. “But I also get what he needs. I’m his eyes and ears.”

Foskett has trouble seeing and is hard of hearing. He uses a walker; she relies on a wheelchair.

“We have a lot in common,” he said. “Trivia, music, cards, bingo.”

Hailey listened and added two more ingredients: love and intimacy.

“He is a lover,” she said. “He’s very congenial; he talks to everyone.”

As Mullaney described how staff members were making special plans for the ceremony, Foskett smiled and said, “The whole building is excited.”

A nursing aide is taking a vacation day and buying a new dress so she can be there.

The weekend nursing supervisor is getting a tux and coming in on his off-duty time.

“There’s a lot of heart and soul in this building,” Mullaney said, “Everyone wants to help. Everybody is offering something.”

Hailey moved to the Life Care Center in January 2005.

Foskett was admitted three months later. They didn’t meet until about a year later, when she decided she’d like to change her bingo table and asked him, “Do you mind if I sit here?”

After the fateful bingo game last fall, the couple started spending time together. Mullaney would see them playing cards and laughing. “They were very discreet,” she said.

Foskett grew up in Cambridge, served in the Army medical corps from 1942 to 1945, married while in the service, and worked as a baker, fork lift driver and in construction. He and his late wife, who died several years ago, raised four children in Somerville. Hailey graduated from Quincy High in 1949, attended Katherine Gibbs, was a secretary and has lived in Cohasset, Scituate and Braintree. She has been married before and traveled often while married.

Since they decided to share a room a month ago, they’ve learned new things about each other. That’s been good, they said.

“He’s pretty kind,” Hailey said. “Though he can be exasperating at times. We’ve had our spats.”

When Mullaney commented that what she sees is compromise – “It really is 50-50 between them” -- Hailey said, “Compromise. They taught us that at Quincy High School.”

She hadn’t known, she said, that “he wakes up singing in the morning,” indicating that was not her style. Foskett just smiled, then said, “The best part of living together is you get to know each other -- their likes, dislikes, temperament. You have time to figure it out.

“Even at 87, a guy likes a little wiggle room.”

Mullaney laughed.

“You were a catch,” she said.

The Patriot Ledger

Sue Scheible can be reached at 617-786-7044, by mail at The Patriot Ledger, Box 699159, Quincy, MA 02269-9159 or e-mail at sscheible@ledger.com.

ON THE WEB

To see Frank Foskett and Virginia Hailey as they prepare for their marriage, go to Patriotledger.com and click on multimedia.